


All is Well

by respoftw



Series: Tumblr Prompts - Hawksilver edition [33]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Grief/Mourning, M/M, Maximoff family feels, Pre-Slash, or gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-03 16:10:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4107004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/respoftw/pseuds/respoftw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anonymous said:</p>
<p>For prompts: angsty af I know, srry. Wanda died (and stayed dead) instead of Pietro...</p>
            </blockquote>





	All is Well

As soon as it happened, he knew. It didn't matter that he wasn't the twin gifted with the power to see into other people's minds, he still felt the exact moment when Wanda died.

 

He could hear the panicked voice of Clint as the Avenger's hands desperately searched for the reason that he had crumpled onto the ground. As if Pietro couldn't dodge speeding bullets with his eyes closed.....thinking back, speeding bullets would probably have hurt less.

 

He was moved on to one of the rescue ships, he doesn't remember walking, Clint must have carried him. He'd probably have been embarrassed if he hadn't been busy dealing with the gaping hole in his heart that his sister's presence used to fill.

 

He does remember the warmth of Clint's body lying beside him, the feel of calloused hands in his own. He fell asleep to the gentle voice of someone who was practically a stranger, wishing that he would wake to find it was all a dream.

 

He read once that there are five stages of grief. What a load of crap. He _knows_ grief, he knows it far too well. Denial? How could he not believe that she's dead? When all he can feel is her absence. Anger? Yeah, he's angry. At himself. If he hadn't insisted they join with Strucker, if he hadn't pulled her into this, she would still be alive. Being angry at himself isn't a new feeling for Pietro. Bargaining? What does he have left to bargain with? Depression? …....He's not depressed, he's fine.

 

As for acceptance? What choice does he have?

 

The funeral is small. He gives his speech in Sokovian, not caring that no-one else can understand. The words are for Wanda, not them.

 

He soldiers on. Joins the Avengers for real because it's what Wanda would have wanted for him. He laughs at jokes, complains about Steve's early morning training sessions and lives his life without Wanda.

 

Being an Avenger is good for him, it gives him something to focus on. He might not have been able to save her but he won't let someone die on his watch again. It helps.

 

Until Cap is calling him out for being reckless. For needlessly endangering his own life. The next thing he knows he's been shipped off to some farm to 'straighten out'. He shoulders past Clint, not caring that this is the first time he's seen the former Avenger since the funeral. He doesn't even wait to be shown which room is his, just flings himself on to the first bed he finds and passes out. He likes to sleep.

 

Clint, it seems, does not like to sleep. Not if the way he hauls Pietro out of bed before the sun is even up is anything to go by. He works Pietro like a mule, back breaking work that leaves him exhausted and spent at the end of each day. Pietro takes it without complaint. If this is what he needs to do to convince Steve that he's Avengers material then this is what he'll do.

 

He seems to remember that Clint used to talk more but they spend their days in silence. He's not stupid. He knows that Clint is waiting for him to break. He's going to be waiting a long damn time. Maximoff's do not break.

 

They're sitting in the kitchen, doing the dishes in the usual silence when Clint's resolve finally breaks. “They're not gonna let you back in until you start talking about it you know. So why don't you do us both a favour and start to deal with it?”

 

Any thrill Pietro had felt at Clint buckling first is replaced with a white hot rage at the exasperated tone. He can't help but hiss back. “And why would I do you a favour? The idiot that ran back out into the fight. The idiot that I was saving when I should have been saving her!”

 

He sees the guilt on Clint's face, just for a moment before he slams the super spy blank face down, and it's too much. He storms off to the room he'd claimed as his own, slamming the door behind him and escapes into sleep.

 

He shouldn't have said that. He didn't even mean it. He can't bring himself to apologise but he does the next best thing and asks Clint to pass the milk at breakfast the next morning, ignoring the smile it brings to Clint's face.

 

They continue in silence for the rest of the day and it's not until they're doing the dishes that night that Clint speaks again. “What was Wanda's favourite colour?” he asks.

 

Pietro is so startled by the insignificance of the question that he blurts out the answer. “Red.”

 

“Huh. So, you think her misty mind control thing was that colour because it was her favourite or is it a coincidence?”

 

Pietro can't make sense of this conversation. How the hell would he know? Why would he even care? He has the feeling that Clint is playing some game with him and he doesn't like it, so he storms off to his room for the second night in a row.

 

Now that Clint's got him talking, though, it doesn't stop. Every night, as they wash the dishes, he comes up with another stupid question.

 

“What was her favourite movie?” (Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame)

 

“What was her favourite animal?” (Wolves, they stick together, “like us”.)

 

“How old was she when she had her first kiss?” (Seven and Pietro had pushed the kid off the swing later that day, jealous that his little sister was kissed before him.)

 

It continues like that for a while. Silly question after silly question, each answer Pietro gives becoming longer and more involved until he found himself regaling a cackling Clint with the story of how they tried to convince their teachers in nursery that they were each other, even going so far as to swap clothes, not caring that they looked barely anything alike. “What? It worked for twins in all the films. We were four!”

 

Clint is wheezing with laughter now, tears running down his face as Pietro tells how Wanda started crying when she realised that Pietro's longer legs had caused her tights to run.

 

It's actually sort of nice. Talking about her. Thinking about her. Of course Clint has to go and ruin it by changing the rules.

 

“What did you say at her funeral? Part of it sounded like a poem. It was beautiful.”

 

Pietro doesn't answer, just finishes his beer and heads to his room. At least he didn't slam the door this time. He must be making progress. Sleep doesn't come, he tosses and turns, wondering why that question was so different to the ones before. As morning breaks, he realises that it's not different at all. It's all part of who Wanda was.

 

Clint is already sat at the kitchen table with his first cup of coffee when Pietro enters. He looks as if he is about to say something, probably an apology, but Pietro doesn't want to hear it.

 

“It was a passage that she read somewhere after our parents funeral. She found it in a book at the orphanage and came running up to me, waving this ripped piece of paper screaming that “All is well”....she didn't even care that she could get in trouble for destroying the book.” Pietro smiles at the memory. Technically, she hadn't got in trouble. Pietro had taken the blame and the punishment, never letting on about his sore palm as he watched Wanda fall asleep with a smile on her face for the first time in months. “ _Death is nothing at all. It does not count...._ ” As Pietro recites the words in the hazy morning sunshine of Clint's kitchen he feels like the hole he's carrying around with him is just that little bit smaller. God, Clint's going to be so smug about this later, he thinks.

 

It gets easier after that, living. There are still days when all he wants is to see her, to hear her voice again but, talking with Clint, letting him learn about her through his stories makes it that bit more bearable.

 

“I wish I'd had a chance to get to know her,” Clint says one evening as they relax in front of the fire, the weather turning cold enough that Pietro had been tasked with chopping firewood that morning.

 

Pietro surprises himself by how sure he is of his answer. “She'd have loved you.”

 

As winter draws nearer the powers that be decide that he's ready to be an Avenger again. Saying goodbye to Clint is harder than he thought it would be.

 

He offers him a handshake and Clint just snorts and pulls him in for a hug. “Don't be an idiot in the field again”, he whispers, “and you're welcome here anytime you want.”

 

As he blinks back tears on the quinjet he has to laugh at the panicked looks that Steve is throwing him. Cap probably thinks he's still wallowing in grief over Wanda. Strange thing is, he thinks he might be grieving for something different this time.

 

Being an Avenger is every bit as amazing as he remembers it. He's saving people, making a difference, doing what Wanda would have done.

 

He thinks, though, that it might be time to do what he wants to do.

 

Three months after the kid left, Clint opens the door to see Pietro standing nervously on his stoop, what looks like his life's belongings in bags at his feet.

 

“Welcome home.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [Tumblr](http://pietrolovesclint.tumblr.com)
> 
> The title is from the passage that Pietro starts to recite:
> 
> Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well. Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before. How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!
> 
> \- Henry Scott Holland


End file.
